Oh Tears of Joy!

"Physician, heal thyself" Luke 4:23

To be a healer, one must learn to heal one's self. I have been on the path of learning to heal myself for the past 25 years. It has been a long and windy road. I have placed myself in many situations tht have been physically, mentally, emotionally, energetically and spiritually challenging, each tiem a little more, so that I would push at my boundaries, unblock old blockages, unlearn lessons that not meant for me and undo old habits that no longer served me.

I have been healing myself for the past 25 years and still the work has not been completed. Instead I find this healing work much like removing the layers of an onion, or walking a labyrinth. Each time I remove another layer there is still another deeper layer yet to be explored and transformed. Learning to be who I really am, to follow th path that was chosen for me, or rather that I chose for myself when I incarnated as the person that i am, in this conjuncture of time-space, under the specific alignment of stars that I chose and to the parents tht I selected, learning those lessons have been particularly hard for me. Maybe no more than others I have been challenged to learn the lessons of trust, to learn the lessons of forgiveness and to learn the ultimate lesson, the lesson of love.

These lessons have all be difficult lessons for me to learn ... 1) trusting in that power, the nameless that has no name, that is beyond myself and yet at the same time trusting in myself, 2) forgiving myself for whatever mistakes, errors or misjudgements I believe I have made and at the same time forgiving all others for what I believe thay may have done to me and 3) loving myself unconditionally and learning to love all others, even those that I don't like. Thses have been difficult lessons that I have struggled toincorportate into my life for the past 25 years .. I am still learning tham .. as Socrates and Lao Tzu both said.. To know and not to do, is not to know.

Last week my faith in the Spirit was tested. I had left my jobs in Toronto and taken this sabbatical to learn new healing techniques and to renew my Spirit, to leap into the abyss and trust that I am always taken care of. It is a lesson that most aboriginal peoples who live off the land and trust in the Creator to provide their daily meals, and the Zen monks who travel with their bowl in their hands, and those who are homeless and live off the charity of others, know all too well. It is a lesson we mostly chose to forgot in the West, having structured our lives so that we have a steady and secure source of income.

I too had made sure that I had done all the calculations before I left and made sure that there would be sufficient funds for my sabattical. What I would do when I returned, well, only Spirit would show me that when I was ready to see that fork in the road. Trusting in Spirit, and following the path of many who had gone before me, I jumped into the abyss. All was well for the first two months, but I still had not been paid for some work that I had done before I left. I trust in Spirit enough to know that the money will arrive when I need it to arrive. As the end of the second month approached and the money did not appear, I began to lose faith.

It was then that Spirit once again intervened. Out of the blue, a longtime friend Bev emailed to offer to periodically deposit $20 in my account, as she knew that I was not working and had gone off on this sojourn. I received the email as a true sign from Spirit as it came at a time when I was doing serious battle with the Adversary, some call him/her Satan or the Devil, but this is the spirit that tests our faith in the Great Will, that appears as the darkenss before the dawn, that challenges us to lose faith just before we find that which we have been searching for. I had been doing battle with the Adversary when the email arrived.

I was still not out of the woods and sent an email to all my contacts offering to sell some of the artworks that I had purchased in an effort to support the local people in the different places I had travelled to. I had collected some beautiful yarn art from the Wirriraca people as well as some natural fibre items, all purchased on fair trade principles. I sent out the email in the morning and tears of joy were runing down my face when I checked my eamil the following morning when my father, my brother and a few of my friends all answered my request. A Jewish friend, who did not have space in her apartment for any artwork, offered to give me the gift of chai, or life, a gift of $18. All these replies were the voice of Spirit echoing through the mouths and hands of those I know. It indeed renewed my trust in the Spirit, and in the path that I have been called to travel.

For all those who have generously supported my travels or purchased artwork, I willi ndeed lay down a prayer for you in the desert. May you be blessed multifold and ay the Great Spirit be there for you when you are in need. I will continue along the road of healing myself. This indeed had been a powerful lesson in trust, in forgiving myself and in love ... As Masauke, my teacher often says, if the road to becoming a healer was an easy road then it would be crowded.

Stay Tuned. Staywell and Travel with Spirit, Spirit Traveller